Pomegranate Tea

I actually feel excited about doing today’s post. It is something that pushed me off my comfort zone. It may be a super simple recipe but the expectation and trepidation of how it would end up being was immense. 🙂

It is the tenth of the month, so it is time for the Muslim Food Blogger (MFB) Challenge. You can check out all the previous posts here. This month, we chose to cook with an ingredient and it was “Pomegranate”. “Rumaan” as it is called in Arabic is one of the fruits mentioned in the Quran. It is a fruit that awaits us in Jannah, InShaAllah… Have you looked at it and marveled at its beauty? At the way each pearl is placed inside, the sweet tartness that is unmatched with any other fruits… “In both of them are fruit and palm trees and pomegranates. So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?” (Surah Ar-Rahman: 68-69)

If you search, you will get a list of benefits from eating this fruit. Agree, that it is a tough job taking off the arils, but the speed at which it would get eaten is another case. We enjoy it the most when it is tossed up with chickpeas as salad and many times, I love it as juice too.

While trying to figure out an interesting way of using up this fruit for this challenge, I ended up on this link. I read and re-read, since I wasn’t very much convinced. I hit the back button and kept searching for more options but the wording “pomegranate tea” kept haunting me. Finally I decided to try it just for myself, to avoid the risk of seeing other faces. 😀

There is no actual tea leaves involved in it. It is a caffeine free tea. The pomegranate arils are boiled and simmered till it releases all its colors and fluids into the water, and then sipped hot. Even though we have had a very sad winter this time, there were still some lovely cold moments where a cup of this tea would have been perfect. The mint leaves are purely optional but it adds a lovely dimension to this tangy tea. I didn’t sweeten it but you can use honey or sugar as per choice.

If you are in a mood for something different, then do try! Also, don’t forget to check what my other co-bloggers cooked up with this wonder fruit…

This tea looks lovely. I once had pomegranate tea on a trip to Istanbul. I was so much in love with it. But they had used some sort of dried pomegranate. Well, I never got myself to try it at home. Your recipe brings back the pleasant memories of that tea, will surely give this a try!